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Barely Best Day
Aug. 26th, 2013 03:38 pmSunday is the Zoo and the Cupcakes – Except that there were no cupcakes, though there were cinnamon rolls and they were fine. And there was a tree, a great tall magnificent tree that stands out against the pure-clear-blue-sky. That’s the sort of thing you might not remember that you need to see on the regular. The great tree in the blue sky. I look at the tree in the blue blue sky and think about how could you even ever draw it or take a picture or paint it – weird fractal recursion of the tree and how it’s something that can’t really be depicted in a really persuasive form visually. Which is enough to foster a need in your heart for such a thing – because you can’t see it if you don’t see it.
I think we’re going away from the zoo, as a mode and a place. Once, for a long time – the zoo was Our Place. Youngster A would say “This is our kind of place.” And I can’t tell you what it was in her voice or the way that she inflected words, or her halting toddler cadences or what about those words in particular it was that cut me up like a fatted calf and set me to fire, but that’s what they did – those exact words. Now, now we’re out of that wilderness of barely understood words and no clear distinction between her wishes and my own. We’re both understanding how it is that she’s becoming grown. Raised. She talks to me and is able to maintain a conversation – somewhat, it’s a different woods, a reedy forest of evasion and disinterest you have to coax the words out of her, get her to look up from her book or her game. She’s bright but a kid, and she’s interested but a kid. She’s a kid, growing grown and not so small anymore. She says – “I’m so tired can you carry me?” And I do – because if there’s a merit in gigantic fatherhood it’s that, that you are strong after the other fathers have grown weak. Yes, I carry her and there’s speculation about her weight that drives her to some confusing self-conciousness. I understand this and am not trollish or cruel, I don’t like it, but I don’t goad. When I remember not to. But I carry her up the mile long hill, and a huff and a puff even comes out of me. I remember to her how in times gone by, she’d run up ahead and put her arms out – for me to stop and pick her up.
I don’t want to but can’t help always reminding her of what has happened, the old times – they don’t seem old to me. I play video games from 2001 and am happy, they seem fresh, complex and new, 10 years now, the last 10 years – they’ve been a slow development of seemingly unconnected events. I think of the few specific things that will stand out for me 2003-2013 – the guidestones that suffice in place of memory. Things that I won’t comment on here, memories that seem not to be memories but yesterdays, recent events, just a few scrolls deep on my journal here.
We once went to the zoo like a fat man goes to the donut store – everyday and sometimes just out of boredom. Now we go, first time all year, and I think it’s the last time for a while. “You seem down? Are you down?”
“A little.”
“Was it because grandma depressed you?” (Grandma depresses everyone, everyone.)
“No, she was okay this time.”
“Is it because you didn’t eat enough?”
“No I’m good now.” (eating a cookie and drinking green juice, daily calories /= 1400)
“Did the zoo make you sad somehow?”
“I think kind of. I think the animals are depressed.”
They kind of were too. I explained how I loved taking her to the zoo because it was something for us to do together that seemed like something for children. And then I talked about how I didn’t really like the zoo myself, just that it was something for us.
Now, she is nostalgic, not about the things we’ve done together, the places we’ve been. She says: “Dad, remember that weekend you were sick and we laid in bed and watched Avatar the last airbender?” How could I not? I mean, yes, I do remember, it was… I remember. Now she wants to watch shows with me, cartoons, episodes, it’s what we have. Maybe she’s grown lazy, maybe I have. What we do together isn’t all that compelling, what we do together is nourish our mutual interests. Apart we both make things, trinket artworks, together we watch shows, trinket artworks, stories. I think this is fine, I hope it is.
But we won’t see the zoo again this year, for a long time after maybe. Maybe we’ll be equally charmed and remember the same thing together that we’ll both love equally. That’s a thing I hope for I guess.
I think we’re going away from the zoo, as a mode and a place. Once, for a long time – the zoo was Our Place. Youngster A would say “This is our kind of place.” And I can’t tell you what it was in her voice or the way that she inflected words, or her halting toddler cadences or what about those words in particular it was that cut me up like a fatted calf and set me to fire, but that’s what they did – those exact words. Now, now we’re out of that wilderness of barely understood words and no clear distinction between her wishes and my own. We’re both understanding how it is that she’s becoming grown. Raised. She talks to me and is able to maintain a conversation – somewhat, it’s a different woods, a reedy forest of evasion and disinterest you have to coax the words out of her, get her to look up from her book or her game. She’s bright but a kid, and she’s interested but a kid. She’s a kid, growing grown and not so small anymore. She says – “I’m so tired can you carry me?” And I do – because if there’s a merit in gigantic fatherhood it’s that, that you are strong after the other fathers have grown weak. Yes, I carry her and there’s speculation about her weight that drives her to some confusing self-conciousness. I understand this and am not trollish or cruel, I don’t like it, but I don’t goad. When I remember not to. But I carry her up the mile long hill, and a huff and a puff even comes out of me. I remember to her how in times gone by, she’d run up ahead and put her arms out – for me to stop and pick her up.
I don’t want to but can’t help always reminding her of what has happened, the old times – they don’t seem old to me. I play video games from 2001 and am happy, they seem fresh, complex and new, 10 years now, the last 10 years – they’ve been a slow development of seemingly unconnected events. I think of the few specific things that will stand out for me 2003-2013 – the guidestones that suffice in place of memory. Things that I won’t comment on here, memories that seem not to be memories but yesterdays, recent events, just a few scrolls deep on my journal here.
We once went to the zoo like a fat man goes to the donut store – everyday and sometimes just out of boredom. Now we go, first time all year, and I think it’s the last time for a while. “You seem down? Are you down?”
“A little.”
“Was it because grandma depressed you?” (Grandma depresses everyone, everyone.)
“No, she was okay this time.”
“Is it because you didn’t eat enough?”
“No I’m good now.” (eating a cookie and drinking green juice, daily calories /= 1400)
“Did the zoo make you sad somehow?”
“I think kind of. I think the animals are depressed.”
They kind of were too. I explained how I loved taking her to the zoo because it was something for us to do together that seemed like something for children. And then I talked about how I didn’t really like the zoo myself, just that it was something for us.
Now, she is nostalgic, not about the things we’ve done together, the places we’ve been. She says: “Dad, remember that weekend you were sick and we laid in bed and watched Avatar the last airbender?” How could I not? I mean, yes, I do remember, it was… I remember. Now she wants to watch shows with me, cartoons, episodes, it’s what we have. Maybe she’s grown lazy, maybe I have. What we do together isn’t all that compelling, what we do together is nourish our mutual interests. Apart we both make things, trinket artworks, together we watch shows, trinket artworks, stories. I think this is fine, I hope it is.
But we won’t see the zoo again this year, for a long time after maybe. Maybe we’ll be equally charmed and remember the same thing together that we’ll both love equally. That’s a thing I hope for I guess.
